"The worker lost the ...."

The safe operation of machinery in our industry has improved overtime. New equipment is designed with the latest safety measures. Unfortunately, the vast majority of machinery in our plants is older and may not have current safety mechanisms. It is important that all companies review the safety mechanisms of their older machines. Are there redundant mechanisms to prevent safety incidents from occurring? Has your machine been serviced recently by the equipment manufacturer? If not, there are many ways of improving the safety of your machines. The simplest is comparing your specific model to a current model in terms of safety mechanisms. Maybe contacting the equipment manufacturer for assistance would be well worth the time and effort. Whatever you do, at minimum you will realize the hazards that the equipment manufacturer has acknowledge since your machinery was built. Here is a recent story:

A local court fined an aluminium company in March, 2015 for allowing access to the dangerous parts of the machine at the company’s site in the Spring of 2014.

The aluminium press heats solid aluminium to around 450 degrees, softening the metal so it can be shaped into a die that creates the final product. Two workers were maintaining the press, which needed routine unblocking. They accessed the machine through separate gates to clear the blockages. One worker finished before the other, exited the machine and closed his entry gate.

The machine proceeded to restart and the loading clamps of the machine began to operate, trapping the hand of the worker who was still inside. A government safety organization investigation found that the press’s interlocks did not fully isolate the machine while only one gate was open.

This meant employees could access dangerous zones, including the loading arms and clamps, while they were not safely isolated and were repeatedly exposed to unnecessary risk.

“The company’s risk assessment was not suitable and sufficient to ensure that the relevant dangerous parts of the press would stop before a person entered the press,” said HSE inspector Lindsay Bentley. “Following the incident it took just 10 minutes for these interlocks to be reprogrammed.”  

The worker lost the end of his little finger and his ring finger to his second joint on his left hand, and also suffered burns. He could not work for eight months and returned to the company in a different role.

The aluminium company was fined over £22,000 by a local court.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog acknowledges the seriousness of the worker’s injury. We pray that the worker is provided physical therapy and mental health counseling to deal with this incident. We understand that long term effects on an incident such as this are recalled by the injured worker on a daily basis (if not more often).

Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has some useful information regarding. It can be located here.

If by happenstance the APSB met this injured worker, we first would let the worker talk, let them explain their feelings, pains, difficulties, fears, anger, etc. We won’t ask him what happened. Why? Because it simply does not matter now, and he’s probably told the story a hundred times. We hope that the worker would understand that our caring was not out of pity, but out of compassion. We would end the conversation by telling him that we’ll pray for him, and ask him to keep us in our prayers. Does is sound like the APSB has spoken with workers who were injured. Yup, we have. We do this because we care, because heavens knows how hard it is to have this knowledge of what actually occurs in our industry. Getting off the soap box now, we are extremely proud of our industry. Though the APSB may be aware of what occurs in our industry, we are also aware of what companies are doing to prevent recurrences and make their workers safe. Thus our pride. There are so many aluminium companies whose good work go unnoticed. These companies do not care about acknowledgement (as a matter fact nor does the APSB) they do it because they want their workers to be safe. Just as the APSB hopes for.

Lastly, the Aluminium Times Magazine had an article about this hazard.

Please Comment.